Doctors boycott BMA over abortion vote

The BMA backed a campaign to decriminalise abortion despite a revolt by 1,500 doctors (Getty)

Doctors are boycotting the British Medical Association after it backed a campaign for “abortion up to birth”.

A number of doctors have contacted the press to express their shock at a new policy in favour of stripping criminal sanctions from abortion law.

“Motion 50” was adopted at a meeting in Bournemouth by a two-thirds majority in spite of more than 1,500 doctors writing to the BMA to warn executives that it would damage the reputation of their union.

They told their trade union that “if these measures were to be implemented, it would mean the introduction of abortion for any reason, to at least 28 weeks and possibly up to birth”.

Some of the doctors are now so disappointed that they are quitting their union, saying it has been “hijacked” by people pushing an “extreme” agenda.

Dr Jessica Hudson, a 29-year-old junior paediatrician who works in the neo-natal unit at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, quit two days after the vote. “I no longer felt I was represented,” she said.

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